Do you keep your curtains or blinds open during the day?

[Indigo Blue]

I would love to have windows that looked great with no curtains and not needing to ever cover them because there is enough privacy. 
 

We have a lot of privacy, but some windows need to be covered at night. 
 

But…I yank those few open in the morning and keep the other ones open all the time, day and night. Except, maybe, when it’s raining, it feels cozy to keep the blinds closed and burn a candle with storm sounds playing. 
 

Anyway, a lot of people keep their blinds closed all the time. I drive by houses in the day time, and all the blinds are closed. I wonder if they ever open them. I need light. I need to see outside. It makes me feel better. 
 

I’m not criticizing people who keep their blinds closed. I’m just explaining how I feel, and I just can’t imagine keeping mine closed. Not that anyone else is “wrong”. 
 

Do you NEED yours to be open like me? Or are you totally neutral? Or….do you just prefer having them always closed?

 

[Katy]

I open them until the afternoon glare starts to hit, and then I close them up again. Plus our AC bill is double if I leave them open in the heat of the afternoon. And we have decent windows and insulation. 

[cjzimmer1]

We have a mix.  I have a sunroom off the dining room that has no curtains/blinds and there is a lot of light from that the comes into the main part of the house.  So we always have light and because of the heights/angles we still have privacy.  My front window is huge (it's something like 6 feet by 8 feet) but southern facing.  So I open it every morning and that fill the other side of the house with light, however when it's really hot (like over 85 or so), I will leave the curtains closed because it also means there is a staggering amount of heat on the hot days.  The smaller windows on the sides of the house and the bedroom windows are usually closed.  The angles for most of them look right into neighbor's houses.

[marbel]

It just depends on the temperature, the time of day/year (where the sun hits coming in the window) and our moods.

We have a French door off our kitchen that has no covering. Certain times of the year, I can't sit at the kitchen table in the morning because the sun is coming right at my face. But the door looks nice so we just deal with it. 

 

Edited June 16 by marbel

[freesia]

I need the light, too. So, during the day they are only closed if there is a glare. I do keep the second floor curtains closed if it’s particularly hot or cold bc we don’t use that level much except at night. When we used to only have window AC, I would close all the blinds during the heat of the day during extreme heat days. 

[Indigo Blue]

7 minutes ago, Katy said:

I open them until the afternoon glare starts to hit, and then I close them up again. Plus our AC bill is double if I leave them open in the heat of the afternoon. And we have decent windows and insulation. 

Wow. We have SO many trees. The sun never warms my house inside. 

[Melanie32]

I open my curtains first thing every morning and close them when it gets dark. I really don’t like the cave like feeling of having them closed unless we are watching a movie or something. 
 

We live in Florida and when we had to put up hurricane shutters for storms it always made me feel a bit crazy. Other people down here will leave theirs up for a while but mine came off as soon as the storm passed.

We put in new hurricane windows a couple of years ago and now only have to shutter the sliding glass doors for storms and I feel so much better when storms come through. It always makes me feel a bit depressed when they are up.

[SKL]

For me, it's not about privacy.  We aren't running through the house naked or doing anything the neighbors shouldn't know about.  😛

However, I close blinds at times for the following reasons:

• Because the sun shines in and turns one side of the house into a sauna in the morning ... and the other side in the afternoon/evening.
• To reduce the number of times our dog notices something "different" outside and feels the need to bark through my conference call.

[regentrude]

In the summer, I close the blinds on the South and West-facing upstairs windows during the day because it gets so hot.

The bedroom has two street facing windows; those just stay closed since there's a large window to the yard so it'slight inside.

All others are open. The cats love being able to see out in all directions.

Edited June 16 by regentrude

[KatieJ]

Open until necessary because the sun heats up the west side of the house ..

[stephanier.1765]

Yes, like you I need the light. The first thing I do when getting out of bed in the morning is open the blind nearest me, then the next one in the room and then the third, all before I've so much as gone the bathroom. Then I'll wait until it's full dark before I close them again and only those ones in the bedroom. I'll also wait until the absolutely last moment to turn on a lamp. It's like I feed off natural light like a vampire off blood. LOL

My parents, on the other hand, keep theirs closed and use lamps throughout the day. For them, it's a privacy thing. I've teasingly asked them if they are walking around naked during the day or working on top secret government stuff but they really are just more comfortable when folks can't look through their windows. However, the windows in the room where they spend the day looks out onto a pasture, so I'm not sure who they are worried about. 🤷‍♀️

[KungFuPanda]

I like the view and the light, but in the hottest part of the summer the house stays MUCH cooler if we close the shades. It makes no sense to waste money or resources on air conditioning just to be fussy about the view. I’m better off just going outside when I feel like I need more light. 
 

Currently our air conditioning is on strike. This shade-closing difference is really being tested right now. We live in a hot muggy climate and we’re doing better than I thought we would while we wait to get the AC fixed. If we get too hot we have a full basement with a humidifier that’s cooler and dryer than the top two floors. 

[TheReader]

Our front facing blinds are on our dining-office. When we get up and come into that room, the blinds get opened so we can watch the birds (we have bird feeders on the tree out front).  We do close that one if we leave the house, just for privacy. But if we're home and it's daytime, it's opened. 

Our rear facing blinds are in the living room, and we open those first thing in the morning. We have a covered patio attached, so it stays shaded enough that we no longer have to close them when the sun moves back there. We used to close those in the afternoon, because it heated the room up too much. Our upstairs rear facing ones I do have the kids close around 3-4 or so, again, for the heat. But that's only if I'm up there to remind them - otherwise likely those are open all the time. 

We open ours in rain storms, because DH loves to watch the lightning and the rain. 

Bedroom ones we keep closed, but no one's usually in their bedroom in the day, so...

[Arcadia]

The curtains are all closed during the day too. Our glass sliding patio door leads to our living room so we get a good view and plenty of sunlight there. We live in a condo so basically we can look into lots of neighbors’ living rooms when we are looking out of ours. 

[MEmama]

All of ours are open during the day unless the sun is directly coming in (summer) or it's very very cold (winter). I need the light so opening up is part of my waking up routine.

edit: I keep one blind only halfway open for privacy from the neighbours. We can see right into their bathroom and the dude sometimes walks around the house naked, neither of which I want to see. 🤮 They apparently don't believe in blinds.

Edited June 16 by MEmama

[Laura Corin]

All open during the day and the bedrooms closed at night. We have slatted blinds that we use in the sun room for glare. Heat is rarely an issue.

The front of the house is directly on the pavement/ sidewalk but we are not concerned about privacy. 

Edited June 16 by Laura Corin

[YaelAldrich]

We live in the city (Boston) and literally live right by a busy sidewalk (the condo is 3 feet from the sidewalk). So I spent extra money on top down - bottom up shades for the first (front and back - we have a condo behind us about 8 feet) and third floors in the back. I regret not getting them for the back side 2nd floor. But I pull them down to get light while not letting everyone see our business.

[marbel]

13 minutes ago, YaelAldrich said:

We live in the city (Boston) and literally live right by a busy sidewalk (the condo is 3 feet from the sidewalk). So I spent extra money on top down - bottom up shades for the first (front and back - we have a condo behind us about 8 feet) and third floors in the back. I regret not getting them for the back side 2nd floor. But I pull them down to get light while not letting everyone see our business.

I love the top down blinds in the living (street-facing) room so much. We almost never open them from the bottom. 

[Innisfree]

I prefer to have the blinds open if I’m in a room, but like others, we also have significant summer sun coming in particular windows in the afternoon. Those I close until the angle of the light shifts.

[EKS]

Yes, we keep the blinds open, with the exception of street-facing fishbowl windows, where we have bottom up blinds that we keep open at the top.

[Bootsie]

We have some windows without any covering.  I prefer to have shades, blinds, and curtains open during the day.  But, with temerpatures outside 100+ I will keep shades closed to keep the house cooler.  We have one window in our master bedroom that faces the street that has shutters that I usually tilt to let some light in but don't fully open because it feels very "exposed"  Some of our windows have shades that move from the top or the bottom.  I really like those because I can let some light in but adjust so that there isn't glare or let some light in through the top and still maintain some privacy if I wish.  

[Pawz4me]

I open the blinds in our main living area (living room, dining room and kitchen) as soon as I get up in the morning. Our living room faces east, and the windows in the dining room and kitchen face west. It's not a problem in the living room because our porch is fairly deep and we have a forest of tall trees across the street, so even with the blinds wide open we don't get enough sun to cause a glare or raise the temperature. This time of year, and for the next few months, I have to close the blinds in the dining room and kitchen when the afternoon sun gets around there. Otherwise it heats things up too much. As soon as the sun goes down I open them back up. I don't bother with any of the blinds in the rest of the house. We're not in those areas enough for it to matter.

Edited June 16 by Pawz4me

[SKL]

FTR I have plenty of light with my "blinds" down until fairly late in the afternoon.  I work next to my [covered or uncovered] window and do not turn on the electric light until pretty late.

I have thought maybe I should have another layer of "blinds" to further block the sun's heat in the summer.  It really does get hot in here.

[gardenmom5]

I spend most of my time in the kitchen (no blinds), and the living room (no indoor blinds).  - the outdoor blinds are a fiberglass mesh that blocks 90% of UV but you can still see out.   they are full facing W/SW and the sun is overwhelming.   much as I love the light - it really hurts my eyes.  hence getting the mesh blinds we can see out of.

[KungFuPanda]

3 hours ago, YaelAldrich said:

We live in the city (Boston) and literally live right by a busy sidewalk (the condo is 3 feet from the sidewalk). So I spent extra money on top down - bottom up shades for the first (front and back - we have a condo behind us about 8 feet) and third floors in the back. I regret not getting them for the back side 2nd floor. But I pull them down to get light while not letting everyone see our business.

Did you order your blinds online or from a local place? The windows on my main floor are 4x6 and sometimes I just want the light without seeing the cars or sidewalk. Since we’re uphill from our neighbors, top-down shades would even hide their houses. 

[ScoutTN]

Yes! I want all the light I can get in the house. I do keep the blind on the back door, SW exposure, closed bc it puts glare on Dh’s computer screens. And it’s hot in the summer.

Edited June 16 by ScoutTN

[wintermom]

Yes. I only have curtains on the windows facing the road. I open them as much as possible during daylight hours, except for my home office because the lighting is crappy during Zoom meetings (too much backlight). 

Also, now that I've recently learned about the benefits of full-spectrum lighting, I want all the free, good light I can get! 😉 

[Alice]

We have several large windows with no curtains/blinds. We face a major road but also have a fair number of trees. The kitchen is definitely pretty visible to the public but we don't really worry about it. Because of the trees, light gets in but it's not really a major source of heat in the summer. We have blinds in the bedrooms and close them at night, for the most part. I don't think my sons ever close theirs but their room is in a corner of the house where it would be tough to see into due to trees. I usually open my blinds in the morning out of habit but don't always raise them up as I'm not in the bedroom much during the day. 

[fairfarmhand]

Open unless it’s making the house hot. I’m like you, I need the sun. 
 

I think some people are just not home much so they don’t care about sunshine inside.

 

eta: privacy is not really an issue since we live in the sticks and our closest neighbor is across a cow field

Edited June 16 by fairfarmhand

[QueenCat]

Most of the downstairs blinds are open. I like natural sunlight. If it's super hot & the AC is working extra hard, I'll close all but the room I'm in. 

The upstairs are typically closed, but these are just bedrooms that we don't spend time in once we've showered for the day.

The basement just has a few tiny windows. Some have a curtain, some don't. Curtain is always closed. We can't reach them.

[teachermom2834]

Open in the main living area where I am spending my time but closed in the bedrooms and other rooms I’m just passing through. 
 

However, if I was gone for the day no one else in my family would open them. It would never occur to them. They have no problem with being in a cave. Wouldn’t even notice. 

[HomeAgain]

We live in a temperate climate and that influences our decision to keep the blinds open nearly all the time.  But in the middle of winter, when it's cold and it's not that nice out anyway, we keep the heavy curtains drawn over many of the windows other than in the kitchen.

When we lived in a hot area it was reversed.  During the summer we kept the curtains and blinds drawn to block out the heat and sunlight.  During the winter we let in as much light as possible.

[Katy]

7 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

Wow. We have SO many trees. The sun never warms my house inside. 

Ugh, I'm jealous.  My house is 10 years old and used to be a cornfield, plus I guess there's been several rounds of windstorms that decimated many of the trees that were planted.  The trees in the yard when we bought it looked like they'd just been replaced, and one immediately got damaged by a storm.  The bark is split because it bent nearly to the ground.  DH likes it and refuses to replace it unless it dies though.

There are advantages to few trees.  Lots of light even in the winter.  Lots of wind so unless it's a VERY calm day we don't have biting insects here. But still.  I grew up at the edge of the woods in Florida and I miss trees.

I did hear this thing on NPR that said planting trees in the prairie is an environmental catastrophe and causes all kinds of problems. But I still miss trees.

[Clarita]

For me it depends on the house. My current house has such large eaves that we don't even have window coverings for most of the house. If I had the coverings closed all the time my house would be way too chilly even in the summertime. My parents old house on the other hand if you had the window coverings open in the front window all day it's would be uncomfortably warm. 

I've been to other houses where the window mainly facing the street is actually a bedroom window and then there might be privacy reasons that they keep that curtain closed most of the time. Or even that some homes are so close to a busy street that it'd probably feel like you were at a zoo if you had the curtains opened. They do make some coverings that let the light in but keep people from being able to see in. 

[Annie G]

Sewing room and kitchen always have blinds open. I need natural light. Living room windows across from seating are always open- those windows are the ones I can see through while in the room, and they are on a wide porch that never gets direct sun so I don’t have a huge heat load.  Dining room are open in the mornings and evenings but are often closed mid day because the sun comes in and warms it too much. 
One bedroom window in our room is always uncovered- I use natural light to help me get up with the sun. The other bedrooms and guest room windows are usually covered to keep the heat down. 
 

I see lots of trees through my windows so it’s more than just the natural light I love- it’s the feeling that nature isn’t that far away. 

[math teacher]

During the summer, I keep the living room sheers open, but the kitchen windows let in too much heat, so i have to close the blinds midday.

[Spryte]

We have the top down shades everywhere, so if we want privacy but also want light, we open the top. 

But in practice we keep most blinds open completely all day long. Our house is situated so that it’s pretty private, and we are well shaded so heat isn’t a huge issue.

I also like the treehouse feel of our living area — we are surrounded by trees and there is enough slope in that part of the yard that it feels like we are in the canopy.

All bedroom shades are closed at night.

The back of our house and our living area and kitchen open to a wooded space and a large pond — we generally keep those blinds open all the time, even night. Any person who stood back there could hypothetically see in, but our dogs would let us know (also cameras), so we rarely feel the need to close the blinds. 

I love the light.

[AmandaVT]

Open during the day and closed at night except during the summer - we have a ton of windows that get full afternoon/evening sun, and we pull those as the sun starts hitting that side of the house to keep the house from getting too hot.

On the plus side, we get pretty sunsets!

 

 

[Indigo Blue]

43 minutes ago, AmandaVT said:

Open during the day and closed at night except during the summer - we have a ton of windows that get full afternoon/evening sun, and we pull those as the sun starts hitting that side of the house to keep the house from getting too hot.

On the plus side, we get pretty sunsets!

 

 

Wow!!!

[Harriet Vane]

When I lived in a dense urban neighborhood, I had sheers on all the windows. Blinds underneath the sheers were kept open during the day for the light, and scrupulously closed as the sun was setting. I wanted light but I also wanted privacy.

Now I live in a spread-out suburban neighborhood with huge yards. There is forest behind my house and a field across the street in front. I rarely ever close the curtains. There’s no need—everything is so spread out I feel comfortable with the natural privacy.

[Kassia]

@AmandaVT wow, what a view!  

[DawnM]

We don't have blinds or curtains on our downstairs windows, only our upstairs.   We don't always open them because we don't spend a lot of time in them during the day.   

[catz]

Well I will say when both of us were out of the house all the time the blinds were less likely to be opened in the morning because we’d be running out the door.  When we are home, almost always.  Until the sun starts beating in.  
 

I just assume people are probably not home when their blinds aren’t open. 

[KidsHappen]

We have a war going on in our house. My hubby and I prefer to keep the blinds and curtains closed especially on the entire southern facing rear of the house but my children prefer them open. So if they are open or not depends on the last person in the room. My dc claim we are vampires but really we just don't want a $400 electric bill.

[Melanie32]

We are blessed to have large front and back patios along with trees that provide shade so that we don’t need to close the curtains due to weather. We do keep my bedroom blinds closed as there isn’t any shade at that part of the house. The curtains in there are a bit sheer so they still allow light through without heating up the room too much. Cold just isn’t an issue down here. 

[YaelAldrich]

17 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Did you order your blinds online or from a local place? The windows on my main floor are 4x6 and sometimes I just want the light without seeing the cars or sidewalk. Since we’re uphill from our neighbors, top-down shades would even hide their houses. 

We are Costco members so we bought our window treatments there. A local company contacted with them. We got Graber shades and then individual ones broke they sent out replacements right away. Great service, great price, and terrific replacements when broken by overzealous children.

[Bambam]

About half our windows have blinds and curtains - the rest are a mixture of blinds only or curtains only. 
All curtains are open all the time. The blinds on the master bedroom are never opened but the curtains are (they really are just decorative). 
The fabric blind in the master bathroom is kept 3/4th closed. That window is the block stuff that lets light in but you really can't see through, but I don't care. That bottom 1/4th won't let you see anything anyway and you've have to be crouched down to look through it. 
I like natural light - and a lot of it! I would rip out my fireplace and put a window in there except it would be a very expensive modification. 

Sometimes in the late afternoon/evening, I do pull a couple of curtains if the summer sun is coming in. We are in East TX so the sun can be pretty powerful.  But our house is set up so that really the only problem with the sun is generally the front door (double doors, lots of glass, no way to put up curtains, thinking about doing some window tint). 

When we lived farther south in Texas, we put solar screens on the windows. It really helped with our electric bills! But it did make the house darker as those things did not let in as much light. And the house sorta had a blank look from outside as the screens were pretty dark. 

Edited June 17 by Bambam

[TechWife]

We keep our window blinds on the first floor open during the day and closed at night. During the summer we close some for a few hours in the mid afternoon when the sun is coming in to prevent it from getting too hot inside.

ETA - We don’t have curtains or drapes due to allergies. The 2nd floor blinds are opened in whatever rooms we are using. We live in a dense neighborhood on a corner so we are close to the road on three sides of the house, sidewalk on two sides.

Also, I can’t imagine leaving the window blinds closed - it would be depressing for all of us. 
 

Edited June 17 by TechWife

[Arcadia]

22 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

I think some people are just not home much so they don’t care about sunshine inside.

Our sun glare is so bad my teens have to go to their bedroom during peak “afternoon sun” to do their schoolwork as we have curtains there to block out most of the glare. We have to put up our blackout curtains for summer, we have two curtain rods per window so when the glare is too much we untie the blackout curtains. Our dining room has darker/thicker curtains and we put anything that has to be stored in a shady area there. 
On the bright side, we can sun mattresses, damp beach towels, dry flowers for potpourri indoors. 

[marbel]

54 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Our sun glare is so bad my teens have to go to their bedroom during peak “afternoon sun” to do their schoolwork as we have curtains there to block out most of the glare. We have to put up our blackout curtains for summer, we have two curtain rods per window so when the glare is too much we untie the blackout curtains. Our dining room has darker/thicker curtains and we put anything that has to be stored in a shady area there. 
On the bright side, we can sun mattresses, damp beach towels, dry flowers for potpourri indoors. 

When we lived in the bay area (San Jose), we kept the curtains and blinds closed often because the sun was so bright. 

There are lots of reasons people keep blinds and curtains closed. We have an old painting on one wall that we keep out of direct sunlight. Some people have fabrics that can be damaged by excessive sunlight on them. Some people just don't like bright light!